A few quick comments. China did not “halt bitcoins”. Nor did Korea. What they did was ban and/or regulate exchanges. The bitcoins themselves continue to exist. And peer to peer trading cannot be stopped in any case (theoretically legal yes a country could make ownership “illegal” (indeed the US tried this once with gold), but practically it’s close to impossible). Which is of course why no country has banned peer to peer trading and further why increasingly trading is becoming regulated (hence legitimized) - see earlier discussions.
As for what can be a currency, the answer is anything people collectively choose to be and agree on. Can be marbles in a school yard. Gold among pirates. Bone carvings or feathers among native tribes. Pokémon cards etc.
The fact that food is more widely accepted as a currency by no means negates the fact that non-food items can also function as currencies. Again yes I would rather eat a banana than a lump of gold. That does not mean gold cannot function as a store of value.
Yes bitcoin has been volatile. Not one person here would disagree with you on that. So are many other assets, some more than others. Overall to date, buy and hold has served bitcoin investors very very well.
I already replied to the comment on an asset’s market cap cf amount invested in it. See earlier post above. Nothing unique to btc. Any asset that has risen in value inherently has this phenomenon.
Thanks for a sensibly written response.
The hurdle for Bitcoin is there is not a single Govt or Bank that says Bitcoin is great and they want to adapt it's platform. Rather, there is now 90 of the biggest global banks (up from 30) who announced they will adopt the Ethereum platform for bank to bank transfers (on a private network). That one thing alone killed any chance bitcoin had of becoming the next big thing as a global currency.
What i think there is a lack of appreciation for, is the billions of dollars in IT projects required to create the Ethereum payment platform on a global scale. More money will be spent creating a system that actually works than what real money sits in bitcoin today....... and therein lies the question nobody is asking which is who will fund the billions to create a Bitcoin payment network on a global scale if the people with the ability to fund it are using something else?
Your example on currency entirely supports my position that there is a lack of mass belief of Bitcoin. It promises a global system therefore it needs 7B people to believe in it. This isn't a schoolyard or pirates (ironic you mention thieves trading lol). Gold isn't even money despite the trillions invested in it. Don't think they didn't try a digital Gold system because it has already been done and pushed heavily yet died a quick death..... that was a digital currency backed by physical gold yet it wasn't widely accepted and died vs a crypto that is backed by nothing and has no purpose except for another average Joe to believe that it has a purpose...... playing with fire dude.
The dollars invested also expose the BS. It takes $15B invested to get to $40k using JPM data to model predictions. But they are telling you we need $400B..... because of the market cap being $400B...... why don't these billionaire's understand how market cap calculation works?
The heaviest pusher who is a billionaire is creating a hedge fund for $500M using $150M of his own cash...... this guy made $250m on his big crypto trade. He puts 60% back in and removes the rest because he believes it's such a once in a lifetime opportunity LOL. Did you see what he did there?
Stop and think about what the tops dogs are doing vs what is being said because it isn't marrying up.
Having said that, i won't be surprised to see Bitcoin hit $100k. I won't be surprised to see Bitcoin hit $1k or less. If it can stabilise at $17k-$18k for a few months it will be ok to hit $40k mid 2018 but i would pull out then because there will be a 20% pullback from that spike as people invested now remove their gains.
